Defreg slow in XP compared to 98

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

I have a dual-boot system (XP and 98se) on two FAT partiotions.

When defragging from XP using Windows Defrag, Diskeeper 7 or Norton
SpeedDisk the process is sloooooow, and not all files are
defragmented. The free space is not defragged (put together either)
execept for Norton which does this better than the two others.

BUT if I boot from Win98se and defrag from there using Norton the
speed is fast, all files are defragged, and all free space too.

Why does this take for ever and end up poorly in XP
while working fast and end up 100% in Win98se ?????

Any other defrag for XP that is fast and does the job 100% ?

 

[Richie]

Seriously consider coverting those drives to NTFS and not
FAT32, defragmenting will certainly improve.

A: Standard Windows utility that is called CONVERT serves
this purpose

Just go to the Command Prompt and execute the command:

C:\> CONVERT C: /fs:ntfs

Where C: is a name of the drive you want to convert.

After machine re-boot conversion process will start and
you'll have your FAT32 converted to NTFS without of data
loss.

 

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

Richie skrev:

Seriously consider coverting those drives to NTFS and not
FAT32, defragmenting will certainly improve.

Sure, use NTFS at work. At least as slow (and poor).
And this cannot be the real problem, FAT32 is defragging
fast and good in Win98, why slow and poor under XP?

A: Standard Windows utility that is called CONVERT serves
this purpose

But then I totally will loose the possibility to do anything from
outside XP (even backup etc, since MS "Backup" does not work, refuses
to backup the system-files, so I have to do this from Win98se

 

[Alias]

Sounds like your XP installation is a bit dodgy. I find the defrag for XP is
*much* faster than Win 98 or Win Me.
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: Richie skrev:
:
: > Seriously consider coverting those drives to NTFS and not
: > FAT32, defragmenting will certainly improve.
:
: Sure, use NTFS at work. At least as slow (and poor).
: And this cannot be the real problem, FAT32 is defragging
: fast and good in Win98, why slow and poor under XP?
:
: > A: Standard Windows utility that is called CONVERT serves
: > this purpose
:
: But then I totally will loose the possibility to do anything from
: outside XP (even backup etc, since MS "Backup" does not work, refuses
: to backup the system-files, so I have to do this from Win98se
:
: --
: Lars-Erik - http://home.chello.no/~larse/ - ICQ # 7297605
: Win98se, Asus P4PE, 2.53 GHz, Asus V8420 (Ti4200), SB-Live!

 

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

Alias skrev:

Sounds like your XP installation is a bit dodgy. I find the defrag for XP is
*much* faster than Win 98 or Win Me.

But then you compare with the Win98se standard defrag, not Norton
Speeddisk I guess

 

[David Candy]

It designed to be slow.

It's designed to move open files, it's designed to run while the computer continues on other tasks. 98 is not designed to do that.

 

[Bob Harris]

XP's defragger is a lite version of Diskeeper. It is essentialy the same as
the free version of Diskeeper that anyone can download from their site
(www.execsoft.com). If you run that under 98, you will probably find it to
be slow as well. Norton is definitely more optimized for DOS and related
systems, like 98.

With a FAT32 partition, which you must have to run 98, the XP defragger will
(1) not move directories, only files. Neither will Norton, if run under XP.
This is supposedly for your protection, and is enforced by XP itself. In
XP, to defrag directories, you must run the defragger in "boot mode". The
XP defragger does not have such an option, but the full ($$$) version of
diskeeper does. It does help a little to defrag the directories before
defragging the files.

The Norton Utilities were a major disappointment when I switched form 98 to
XP on the same computer. Several features did not exist, and as you have
noticed, the defragger was slower, although I also find it faster than
Diskeeper (version 7 or 8).

One of the replies suggested converting to NTFS. Obviously you can not do
that if you wish to maintain the ability to read that partition by 98 (or
LINUX). However, I must confess that my NTFS partitions do seem to defrag
faster than my FAT32 ones, except for those on external (USB 2.0) disks,
which are generally slow for me no matter what the format.

You might consider doing a web search on "defrag" and check into alternative
defraggers. There are several others out there.

The one other suggestion is to get something like Partition Magic and check
the cluster size. I found that my default clusters were 512 bytes to 4K,
depending on the partition. By increasing that to 8K or even 16K I was able
to speed the defragging processes. However, larger clusters waste some disk
space. PM will estimate this for you before you commit to change the
partition.

But, maybe the best thing to do in your system is just defrag from 98. Or,
if from XP< run it overnight.

 

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

David Candy skrev:

It designed to be slow.

It's designed to move open files, it's designed to run while the computer continues on other tasks. 98 is not designed to do that.

Sound strange. OK, when a file is open. But why slow down all the
time? And why doesnæt all files get defragmented. And why no drfrag of
free space (except for with Norton Speeddisk). When free space is
fragmented, new files WILL get fragmented as well (not enough
contigues free space). Hmmm...

 

[Alias]

: Alias skrev:
:
: > Sounds like your XP installation is a bit dodgy. I find the defrag for
XP is
: > *much* faster than Win 98 or Win Me.
:
: But then you compare with the Win98se standard defrag, not Norton
: Speeddisk I guess
:
: --
: Lars-Erik -

No shit. I thought that was the question. As far as Norton is concerned, I
wouldn't subject my computer to any of those products.
--
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[Lars-Erik Østerud]

This is supposedly for your protection, and is enforced by XP itself. In
XP, to defrag directories, you must run the defragger in "boot mode". The
XP defragger does not have such an option, but the full ($$$) version of
diskeeper does. It does help a little to defrag the directories before

Yep, have tried that. But that is no real problem.

The Norton Utilities were a major disappointment when I switched form 98 to
XP on the same computer. Several features did not exist, and as you have
noticed, the defragger was slower, although I also find it faster than
Diskeeper (version 7 or 8).

Yep, and it does defrag free space, none of the other does. And
defragged free space makes less fragmented new files.

But, maybe the best thing to do in your system is just defrag from 98. Or,

Got just one problem doing it from 98. Chkdsk and/or Norton DiskDoctor
warns about "unused long file names" and needs to remove them. Once I
boot back in XP alle long file names containing norwegian characters
like Ø or (O with /) is gone. So it seems like those characters are
not treated equal in FAT32 under 98se and XP. Anyone know more.

It's no big problem, just need to rename those files again (uses
norwegian chars very seldom, only a problem in MSIE favourites

 

[Alias]

: David Candy skrev:
:
: > It designed to be slow.
: >
: > It's designed to move open files, it's designed to run while the
computer continues on other tasks. 98 is not designed to do that.
:
: Sound strange. OK, when a file is open. But why slow down all the
: time? And why doesnæt all files get defragmented. And why no drfrag of
: free space (except for with Norton Speeddisk). When free space is
: fragmented, new files WILL get fragmented as well (not enough
: contigues free space). Hmmm...
:
: --
: Lars-Erik - http://home.chello.no/~larse/ -

Try it in Safe Mode and see if it doesn't come up with zero files
fragmented.
--
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[Lars-Erik Østerud]

Alias skrev:

Try it in Safe Mode and see if it doesn't come up with zero files
fragmented.

The problem doesn't seem to be that the files are in use. The files
not defragmented are HUGE game files (Valve/Steam) and audio/video.

THink the problem might be related to the free space not beeing
defragmentet. There might not be enough continous free space for those
huge files (escpesially shen folders are not moved).

I'll see what happends after I have user Norton Speedisk under XP.
Then more free space is available. If not I'll have to do a boot
defrag to move the folders to make more free space continous

 

[David Candy]

It's designed to run without affecting the machine's primary task. That was it's central selling point. You didn't need to take down your companies web site or sales order processing system to give your drives a bit of a defrag.

Fragmentation is not that important due to caching (so a lot of reading from memory rather than disk), most files you load are system files that are probably not fragmented and data files tend to be small (it just doesn't matter if your 2 page resume is in 10 parts or 1), and a file, any size, in 2 fragments is irrelevent.

Now a 20 gig database in 10,000 pieces may be relevent.

 

[Bullwinkle. J. Moose]

You are so right about all of it. I also have an external hard drive of
120gig ntfs. No matter which defrag program I use it has taken up to 3 days
to defrag it. I have it set as one partition. As for the rest Norton is
becoming less and less useful since all I have been using in NSW 2003 (which
works fine in xp prof sp2) sre NAV and speed disk.

But I've found that O&O defrag and Perfect disk are faster and better so no
more need for Norton. As for NAV, AVG 7.0 free is faster and updated
regularly.

As far as support is concerned Norton has none unless you pay for it.

As far a PM is concerned, Symantec now owns it and things will be slowing up
there and They will be charging for support as well.

XP's defragger is a lite version of Diskeeper. It is essentialy the same
as the free version of Diskeeper that anyone can download from their site
(www.execsoft.com). If you run that under 98, you will probably find it
to be slow as well. Norton is definitely more optimized for DOS and
related systems, like 98.

With a FAT32 partition, which you must have to run 98, the XP defragger
will (1) not move directories, only files. Neither will Norton, if run
under XP. This is supposedly for your protection, and is enforced by XP
itself. In XP, to defrag directories, you must run the defragger in "boot
mode". The XP defragger does not have such an option, but the full ($$$)
version of diskeeper does. It does help a little to defrag the
directories before defragging the files.

The Norton Utilities were a major disappointment when I switched form 98
to XP on the same computer. Several features did not exist, and as you
have noticed, the defragger was slower, although I also find it faster
than Diskeeper (version 7 or 8).

One of the replies suggested converting to NTFS. Obviously you can not do
that if you wish to maintain the ability to read that partition by 98 (or
LINUX). However, I must confess that my NTFS partitions do seem to defrag
faster than my FAT32 ones, except for those on external (USB 2.0) disks,
which are generally slow for me no matter what the format.

You might consider doing a web search on "defrag" and check into
alternative defraggers. There are several others out there.

The one other suggestion is to get something like Partition Magic and
check the cluster size. I found that my default clusters were 512 bytes
to 4K, depending on the partition. By increasing that to 8K or even 16K I
was able to speed the defragging processes. However, larger clusters
waste some disk space. PM will estimate this for you before you commit to
change the partition.

But, maybe the best thing to do in your system is just defrag from 98.
Or, if from XP< run it overnight.

 

[mano007]

Which type of fat do you use ? (fat16 or fat32) Don't forget both OS
support fat16 and fat 32. Like somebody below wrote cluster size is key
item. Fat16 has 16 address range it's about 65000 clusters but fat 32
support up to 4.8*10^9 clusters. Now you see difference. Defrag must
move each cluster (almost always separately) and update two copies of
fat and root directory. Warning when you change cluster size, files
shorter than cluster size allocate on filesystem at least this size.
(0.5kb file + cluster size 16kb => 16kb less free space)

Mano

 

[Alex Nichol]

I have a dual-boot system (XP and 98se) on two FAT partiotions.

When defragging from XP using Windows Defrag, Diskeeper 7 or Norton
SpeedDisk the process is sloooooow, and not all files are
defragmented. The free space is not defragged (put together either)
execept for Norton which does this better than the two others.

BUT if I boot from Win98se and defrag from there using Norton the
speed is fast, all files are defragged, and all free space too.

Briefly, the speed matter is that doing it from 98 does not do any of
the optimisation of file layout, based on the information about program
loads recorded in Prefetch. The inbuilt defrag uses Diskeeper ideas and
they believe that consolidating free space is a waste of time. I do not
agree. The tool I use is Perfect Disk, www.raxco.com

 

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

mano007 skrev:

Which type of fat do you use ? (fat16 or fat32) Don't forget both OS
support fat16 and fat 32. Like somebody below wrote cluster size is key

FAT32 on both, cluster (or is it block) size 16384 (is that right?)

Still doesn't explain why is that much faster in Win98
and why the defragmentation is better in Win98 (100%)

 

[Alias]

: mano007 skrev:
:
: > Which type of fat do you use ? (fat16 or fat32) Don't forget both OS
: > support fat16 and fat 32. Like somebody below wrote cluster size is key
:
: FAT32 on both, cluster (or is it block) size 16384 (is that right?)
:
: Still doesn't explain why is that much faster in Win98
: and why the defragmentation is better in Win98 (100%)
:
: --
: Lars-Erik - http://home.chello.no/~larse/ -

Sure doesn't when my experience is the opposite. XP's defrag is faster and
it always comes up with zero files fragmented. Try doing it in Safe Mode.
--
Alias

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